Comment by mmooss

I think that's a very interesting, thoughtful response.

> You can’t really separate the content from its medium, its contex, and its audience

Yes, I completely agree.

> the audience wants to feel smart, and believes that they are “too smart to be marketed to”. Here they are scrolling through an attention market looking for interesting information that they need to be convinced to click, read through, share, and engage with. Why was the link shared and content created to being with, and how did it structure itself to fit its content/audience, and why does a particular structure/messaging work while others don't?

> The word for all of that is Marketing.

I think that overemphasizes the significance of a 'market'. 'Market' is used as a metaphor for many things, such as 'attention market', but also implies commercial, transactional, profit-oriented relationships, which don't seem like such strong motivations here (though I can't speak for the author). And to me your claims seem assume that the author's primary goal is more attention - they are in an 'attention market', they do all these things with intent to drive more page views.

They could have many other motivations. As a general concept, people love to share what they know, sort of like the drive to make FOSS. Maybe the author just loves to learn things and the blog posts provide an excuse; I've fallen into similar hobbies - without regret. Maybe they feel validated, or it relieves stress, or it's an escape from a job they hate, etc. There are so many possibilities in addition to commerce, attention, or profit.

I do agree that the HN "audience wants to feel smart, and believes that they are “too smart to be marketed to”." Those are the easiest people to persuade.